My first girlfriend - though I hesitate to call her that, as our relationship was based on each others' psychological issues rather than any particular interest in the other, but all the same an outsider could look at us and think us boyfriend/girlfriend, so I ultimately agree because that's how it felt at the time - anyway, I met her in the late 90s through personal ads in the back of a music magazine.
I met the woman who became Mrs Hopper about a year later through voice advert phone dating. We married after a few years, had kids a few years after that, and separated around '08-'09.
After we separated I used online dating, specifically Plent of Fish and then OKCupid. I had some dates from this, and one year long relationship.
A year or so after that relationship ended, Mrs Hopper and I got back together, with a much clearer understanding of ourselves and each other.
ETA: getting a relationship going hasn't been that hard, though the looking was, at times, tiring. The difficulty I've had is in keeping relationships going, in knowing how to 'be' in a relationship. There was quite a gap between who and how I thought I was and who and how I actually am, for a while.
The Boss wrote:
I told myself it was all something in her, but as we drove I knew it was something in me.
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Of course, it's probably quite a bit more complicated than that.
You know sometimes, between the dames and the horses, I don't even know why I put my hat on.